Comparison of browser engines

This article compares browser engines.

Some of these engines have shared origins. For example, the WebKit engine was created by forking the KHTML engine in 2001.^[1] Then, in 2013, a modified version of WebKit was officially forked as the Blink engine.^[2]

[1]

[2]

Engine	Development status	Creators	License	Used in
WebKit	Active	Apple, initially forked from KHTML	GNU LGPL, BSD-style	Safari browser, GNOME Web, Konqueror, Orion and all browsers on App Store for iOS^[3]
Blink		Google, initially forked from WebKit	GNU LGPL, BSD-style	All Chromium-based browsers
Gecko		Mozilla	Mozilla Public	Firefox browser and its forks; SeaMonkey browser, Thunderbird email client
Goanna		M. C. Straver,^[4] initially forked from Gecko	Mozilla Public	Pale Moon, Basilisk, K-Meleon browsers
NetSurf		NetSurf developers^[5]	GNU GPLv2	NetSurf browser
Servo	Experimental^[6]^[7]	Linux Foundation	Mozilla Public	Experimental browsers^[8]^[9]
LibWeb	Experimental; in pre-alpha^[10]	Ladybird Browser Initiative^[11]	2-clause BSD	Ladybird browser^[12]
KHTML^[13]	Discontinued	KDE	GNU LGPL	Formerly in the Konqueror browser^[14]
Tkhtml		Liem Bahneman^[15]	BSD	Formerly in Html Viewer 3 browser
Mariner		Netscape Communications	NPL	Netscape Communicator 5.0
Flow^[16]	Experimental; in beta^[16]	Ekioh^[17]	Proprietary	Flow browser^[18]
Trident	Discontinued	Microsoft		Internet Explorer browser; Microsoft Edge IE mode
EdgeHTML		Microsoft		Some UWP apps;^[19] formerly Microsoft Edge browser^[20]
Presto		Opera		Opera Mini browser in Extreme/Mini mode, where contents arrive pre-rendered using this engine server-side^[21]
NetFront		Access Co., Ltd.		Formerly in the NetFront browser, Palm Blazer 3 and up, the Dreamcast web browser, the PSP web browser, and PS3 web browser versions prior to system software 4.10.
Tasman		Microsoft		Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition

Engine	Windows	macOS	Linux	BSD	Haiku	Android	iOS^[3]
WebKit	Yes^{[note 1]}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[22]	Yes
Blink	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^{[note 2]}	Yes	No
Gecko	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[23]
Goanna	Yes	Yes^[24]	Yes	Yes	No	No^[25]	No
NetSurf^[26]	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Trident	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No

Engine	JPEG	JPEG 2000	JPEG XL	JPEG XL HDR	JPEG HDR	GIF	BMP	PNG	APNG	SVG	WebP	AVIF	AVIF HDR	HEIC	HEIC HDR
WebKit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[27]^[28]	Yes ^[27]^[28]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes ^[27]^[28]
Blink	Yes	No	No^[29]^[30]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Gecko	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Goanna	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
NetSurf^[31]	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Trident	Yes	No	No^[32]	No	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	No	No^[33]	No	No^[34]	No

Engine	VP9	AV1	HEVC	H264	Opus	FLAC
WebKit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes
Blink	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gecko	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Goanna	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
NetSurf	No	No	No	?	No	?
Trident	No^[35]	No^[36]	Partial^[35]	Yes^[35]	No^[37]	No^[38]

Engine	TTF	OTF	WOFF	WOFF2	@font-face CSS rule	Ligatures (font-variant-ligatures CSS property)
WebKit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blink	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gecko	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Goanna	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
NetSurf	?	?	No	No	Partial^[39]	No
Trident	Partial^[40]	Partial^[40]	Yes^[41]	No^[42]	Yes^[43]	No^[44]

Comparison of browser engines

General information

Support

Operating systems

Image formats

Media formats

Typography

Other items

See also

Notes

References

Related Articles

Timelines

Top Qs

Fact Checks

Engine	Web Components	WebGL	WebGPU^[45]	XHTML
WebKit	Partial^[46]	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blink	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gecko	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Goanna	Yes^[47]	Yes	No	Yes
NetSurf	No	No	No	?
Trident	No^[46]	Yes^[48]	No^[49]	Yes^[50]